


Smile

by JustaGibbsgirl



Series: Six Degrees of Jaqueline Sloane [1]
Category: NCIS
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-07-25
Updated: 2020-07-25
Packaged: 2021-03-06 03:19:42
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,007
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25506568
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/JustaGibbsgirl/pseuds/JustaGibbsgirl
Summary: A case study of Special Agent Jacqueline Sloane
Relationships: Jethro Gibbs/Jacqueline "Jack" Sloane
Series: Six Degrees of Jaqueline Sloane [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1847821
Comments: 30
Kudos: 67





	Smile

**Author's Note:**

> First fanfic post in over ten years. Wasn't sure if the words would still find me, but thankful that they did. Special thanks to coolbyrne for the advice and encouragement.

With dinner finished, the silence between them was uncomplicated as they shifted easily from the table to the kitchen, dirty dishes in hand. Water warmed to her liking running in the sink, she slipped off her suit coat and dropped it onto a dining room chair. 

Sometimes in his marriages he had helped with the dishes, sometimes he hadn’t. Sometimes it was an intentional move to place another direct hit on an already sinking ship. One more nail in the proverbial divorce coffin. But the woman next to him now, up to her elbows in dish soap, had somehow managed to create pleasure for him out of the simplest of tasks. A sinkful of dirty dishes should not bring him even the remotest bit of happiness and yet here he was, feeling a smile creeping up inside of him, threatening to reach his eyes before it reached his lips.

Ask him to pinpoint the exact second he began measuring moments in his life against the moments that had her in it. Ask him to throw a bullseye into the exact instant that he had allowed her access to the inner workings of a broken man. He couldn’t do it. The change had been so subtle, so unfocused, so blurry, that he couldn’t even be angry at himself for allowing it to happen because for all intents and purposes, he’d never realized it had. And that startled him. It startled him that the smile of this equally scarred woman, standing an arms length away from him, had shone a huge spotlight into his heart. And that spotlight had lit not only the broken pieces that needed stitched back together, but an open space that had seemingly been waiting for her brilliancy to plant its roots deep within. 

Reaching for another dish to dry, his eyes flicked across the raised ridges along the otherwise smooth expanse of her back. He knew that strength was something that this woman unequivocally possessed. He appreciated the way that her smile had fought back against the suffering. Three years was enough to know that her smiles, while not completely unguarded, were something she gave freely and openly to many but the one that lit up her eyes… that one belonged to him and him alone. His smug, smirking male ego would believe no different. She smiled at him differently than anyone else. And yet…

He had never told her she was beautiful, even though it was what demanded his attention through even the tersest of moments between them. Never mentioned to her the way her face lit up like a Christmas tree when she mentioned her daughter. Or how breathtaking simple acts of kindness looked on her. Finding Phin’s family had made her absolutely glow from somewhere deep within. Her heart, cautious as she claimed it to be, radiated through her eyes, through her words, but most of all, through her smile. It was there in the most mundane of tasks. Washing dishes was no different.

She insisted all the time that washing dishes was the bane of her existence, Betty Crocker monotony at its finest, but somehow, together, it never felt that way. With him, a sinkful of dishes offered a few more minutes of intimately shared space, which was what she craved so desperately at any given moment throughout the day. Some nights it was playful, sometimes somber, sometimes just the quiet that surrounded them was enough. 

Those were the moments that he held onto, that he fought so valiantly to keep camouflaged to the rest of the world. The smiles that came from her in those moments, were enough to last him for days.

Her peripheral vision caught his easy lean against the counter as he waited for the next few dishes. She thought she caught his fingers tapping to the beat of whatever melody had floated in from the living room radio, but she couldn't be sure. Maybe he was just getting impatient. He reached for the last of the silverware as she plunged her hands into the soapy depths to drain the water. With nothing else to use as a distraction, she bent slightly and reached for the other dish towel on the cabinet door to dry her hands. She stood and found him leaning back into the corner of the two counters, ankles crossed, dish towel slung over one shoulder, fingers still tapping along to a melody and a slow smile easing across his handsome features. 

She loved how that smile could change everything about him. Just as much, she loved how his smile could change everything about her. It was the eyes that she always checked first though. She knew if the smile had reached his eyes, it was real. If it somehow managed to shine a light across his striking features, she knew that it came from a place of genuine joy. Some days she waited hours for it to show itself in his brilliant blues, only to come up empty handed. There had been week-long intervals where she was eager and aching for it, but it never once found the depths of his eyes. Her soul searched for it. Even a flicker, even the smallest glint that shuttered behind his lashes, and her heart would topple as she grasped for the part of him that she so desperately wanted to claim as her own.

The 18-year-old Jack Sloane inside her wanted to dive into the ocean blue of those eyes and fall into the smile from the inside.  
The 28-year-old Jack Sloane inside selfishly wanted the smile to be because of her, because she excited every part of him, and his eyes reflected that need.  
The 48-year-old Jack Sloane simply wanted to exist in a world where, when his smile reached his eyes, and she was near, he would seek her out simply so she could be a part of it.  
It was just that powerful.

And now…, now as she watched the slow smile spread to his eyes, she found herself smiling back.


End file.
